17th
18th
A01=Robert L. Kendrick
Abel
Abraham
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Austria
Author_Robert L. Kendrick
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Bible
Cain
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AGR
Category=AV
Category=AVC
Category=AVLF
Category=DS
Category=QRM
century
clergy
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
devotion
early modern
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Europe
family
Germany
Hagar
identity
Isaac
Ishmael
Italy
Language_English
Lent
nobles
Old Testament
operas
oratorios
PA=Not yet available
piety
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Forthcoming
religious
social
softlaunch
status
stories
Product details
- ISBN 9780226836041
- Weight: 540g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 02 Apr 2025
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Examines how stories of biblical families were reconfigured and projected in the genre of the oratorio, a form of sacred opera, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Based to a great extent on the Old Testament, the largely Catholic musical-dramatic genre was popular in Italy, Austria, and southern Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Biblical Families in Music reveals how difficult stories of fratricide, child sacrifice, death, and forbidden love performed a didactic function in oratorios, teaching early modern audiences about piety and the rules of proper family life.
In the century after 1670, the heavily adapted tales of Abraham and Isaac, Cain and Abel, and the Egyptian slave Hagar and her son Ishmael were set to music by figures such as Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Sacchini and performed during Lent in churches and other sacred spaces for an audience of court nobility, clergy, and the urban patriciate. By examining the resonance of Catholic oratorios within predominantly upper-class social realities, the book broadens our cultural understanding of the early modern European family and underscores the centrality of family and familial relation to social position, devotional taste, and identity.
Based to a great extent on the Old Testament, the largely Catholic musical-dramatic genre was popular in Italy, Austria, and southern Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Biblical Families in Music reveals how difficult stories of fratricide, child sacrifice, death, and forbidden love performed a didactic function in oratorios, teaching early modern audiences about piety and the rules of proper family life.
In the century after 1670, the heavily adapted tales of Abraham and Isaac, Cain and Abel, and the Egyptian slave Hagar and her son Ishmael were set to music by figures such as Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Sacchini and performed during Lent in churches and other sacred spaces for an audience of court nobility, clergy, and the urban patriciate. By examining the resonance of Catholic oratorios within predominantly upper-class social realities, the book broadens our cultural understanding of the early modern European family and underscores the centrality of family and familial relation to social position, devotional taste, and identity.
Robert L. Kendrick is professor emeritus of music at the University of Chicago. His recent books include Singing Jeremiah: Music and Meaning in Holy Week and Fruits of the Cross: Passiontide Music Theater in Habsburg Vienna.
